Posts Tagged ‘The Flare Path’
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on December 14th, 2012.
We spent the morning prodding it with anti-tank rifle rounds and DP bursts, and the afternoon nudging it with mortar bombs and rifle grenades. Nothing worked. The sun was disappearing into a hole in the museum roof when Persikov turned up with the captured flamethrower. “The trouble with you city boys is you don’t know no zoology! Give me covering fire and I’ll show you how it’s done”. So he scampers out to Tram Crater and starts hosing the statue with liquid flame. Almost instantly there’s a sound like ice cracking, and that stout stone tail starts lashing. Cheers echo round the square as The Beast, still dripping fire, waddles out of the ring and heads towards Krautland. Fifteen minutes later the screaming begins. Read the rest of this entry »
Battle of Stalingrad, IL-2, Red Turn, Rise of Flight, The Flare Path, Unity of Command.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on December 7th, 2012.
Dear Mr Ardmaann Animation. I Notice you have not sent ananswer to my message yet. If you dont answer soon I will send my idea to Pixar and they will make “Charlie Chirp: The Story Of A Sparrow Who Wants To Join The famous Silver Swifts Aerobatic Display Team.” DO YOU WANT THIS TO HAPPEN? If its because you think the bit where Charlie gets bullied by the blackbirds is raceist I will change that. It would be just as good if he was bullied by magpies or special moths. If its because you do not like the end when Charlie gets sucked into the Airbus A320 engine NO PROBLEM!! He could get sucked into a Boeing 787 Dreamliner engine. Actually this could be better! Your good fiend Tim Stone.
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Assetto Corsa, flight-simulation, The Flare Path, VFAT, Virtual Festival of Aerobatic Teams.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on November 30th, 2012.
The chemistry between yourself and that INSERTVIRTUALVEHICLETYPEHERE is really quite remarkable. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is it purely a consequence of the skill of INSERTSIMDEVHERE or are there other factors at work? Putting it bluntly, are you and INSERTVIRTUALVEHICLETYPEHERE old flames? Read the rest of this entry »
The Flare Path.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on November 23rd, 2012.
Where do you stand on the issue of simulated poison gas? If your answer is “Upwind!” then read on, I’ve a couple of new games here that may tickle your fancy. Commander: The Great War and Squad Battles: First World War come at The War To End All Wars from opposite directions. The former bestrides Europe and offers two-week turns and army-sized units. The latter bestrides No Man’s Land (sometimes not even that) and occasionally lets a single plucky infantry squad turn the tide of battle. Both are mechanically conservative, but – based on the evidence of my preliminary playtests – rammed with the kinds of period challenges and pleasures that military-minded gamers will struggle to find elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »
Commander: The Great War, Squad Battles First World War, The Flare Path, wargame.
The Grognard's Grognard
By Tim Stone on November 16th, 2012.
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Americanians, did you know that 0.000000000323% of every dollar you pay in tax is spent ensuring a man in Kansas by the name of James Sterrett gets any PC wargame he desires? Recently I crossed Flare Paths with this mysterious freeloader and asked him to justify his lavish government-funded strategy habit. He pointed out he was Deputy Chief, Simulations Division, Digital Leader Development Center, at the Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth and the games in question were used to hone and assess the skills of the US Army’s captains, majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels, and planners. Totally unfazed, I stared at my shoes for a bit then mumbled “Ah. Right. I see.” Read the rest of this entry »
Decisive Action, interview, James Sterrett, The Flare Path, wargames.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on November 9th, 2012.
Widowmaker, couragewaster, pocketliner WAR! Dreamwrecker, treesplitter, firefeeder WAR! Manforger WAR! Forgemanner WAR! Orphanfarmer, streamreddener, thrushchoker WAR! Intothemawwith WAR! Whoskeepingscore WAR! Overbychristmas WAR! Truthrenter, rentpayer, funbringer WAR! My WAR! Your WAR! Great WAR! Scourge of WAR! Read more about WAR! After the WAR! jump.
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demo, Scourge of War: Chancellorsville, Strategic Command: WWI Breakthrough, The Flare Path, WAR.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on November 2nd, 2012.
Could those ruts in a pasture north of Saint-Lô have been made by an experimental Patton’s Best-inspired PC wargame? Might those scorch marks on the runway at Oberammergau indicate that a spiritual successor to Over the Reich is finally on the way? Is that newly-laid narrow-gauge railway line near Arras evidence of an imminent WWI logistics game? FP spends a fair portion of his working life hunched over recon photographs searching for signs of exciting work-in-progress war-fare. His stubby red chinagraph pencil is always close at hand, but recently he’s had precious few opportunities to use it.
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Armored Brigade, Close Combat: Panthers in the Fog, Firefight, free, The Flare Path, wargamer.com, wargames.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on October 26th, 2012.
Enough.
The lying, the self-justification, the sleepless nights… it all stops here.
What follows is the story of a games journalist who touched pitch and was defiled. The confessions of a fool who, having strayed far from the path of probity, is now desperately trying to find a way back. Judge him if you must. Forgive him if you can. Read the rest of this entry »
corruption, ethics, Euro Truck Simulator 2, games journalism, loot, The Flare Path.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on October 19th, 2012.
If it hadn’t been for my dodgy eyes, chronic kinetosis, tendency to daydream, and crippling fear of fear I reckon I would have made a superb fighter pilot. I’d have been the chap that was forever being called into the wingco’s office for a stern dressing-down. “Dammit Stone, that’s the third Mosquito you’ve written-off this week! If you hadn’t bagged 28 Fw 190s today and bullet-scrawled ‘Hitler has only got one testicle’ on the side of the Reich Chancellery during a daring but totally unauthorised raid on Berlin, I’d be handing you your discharge papers right now rather than this platinum DFC and £10 Harrods voucher.” Read the rest of this entry »
Combat Pilot, Steel Beasts Pro Personal Edition, The Flare Path.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on October 12th, 2012.
The compiler of this column has always been, and will always be, an equal opportunities emplaner. Just because a flight game is Dimensionally Challenged – just because its spread of sky lacks a North and South, or an East and West – doesn’t mean I won’t clutch it to my kitten-clawed bosom or spit scalding Criti-Bile™ in its eye. Unhappily, 2D flight games with a modicum of respect for realism are rarer than rocking horseflies these days. Some might even go so far as saying the sub-genre is slightly dead. Read the rest of this entry »
2D flight sims, 303 Squadron, channel-4, demo, free, Pe-2 Dive Bomber, SkyStrike Plus, The Flare Path, Wings of Fury.
Simulation & wargame news
By Tim Stone on October 5th, 2012.
13.55. Spot a ‘there’ where there should be a ‘their’. Hurriedly rectify. 13.56. Discover a ‘their’ where there should be a ‘there’. Hurriedly rectify. 13.57. Notice a ‘there’ where there should be a ‘they’re’. Shake fist at English language. Hurriedly rectify. 13.58. Spy a wan ‘wont’ wantonly wanting an apostrophe. Hurriedly rectify. 13.59. Wander, knot fore the thirst thyme, if I’m cut out for this writing-about-games lark. 14.00. Press ‘PUBLISH’ then sink into armchair while exhaling like a bullet-riddled Beaufighter tyre. Read the rest of this entry »
free, RaceRoom, Rise of Flight, SimBin, The Flare Path, Volo Airsport.
